The college celebrated its founding in 1890 with an anniversary event on Tuesday, Feb. 11 in the Conaway Center at 1104 S. Wabash Ave. The celebration featured trivia, guest speakers and the unveiling of a mural made by Columbia alum Mac McGuire, an illustration major who graduated in 2024. 

The college started as the Columbia School of Oratory by Mary A. Blood and Ida Morey Riley in 1890. It became the Columbia College of Expression in 1904  and then in 1944 was renamed Columbia College. In 1992, it changed its name again to Columbia College Chicago.

TRANSCRIPT

0:06

Cheers to 135 years. Columbia is celebrating its 135th anniversary here at the Conway Center with food, guest speakers and a mural unveiling by Columbia alum Mac McGuire.

0:18

Yeah, so my inspiration for the mural came a lot from the timeline that Columbia provided me, obviously, but I really, really wanted to make something about growth.

0:27

I love to illustrate flowers and any ways that I can get that integrated into my work, I try to. 

0:31

So the idea of a path forward feeling like a garden was very important to me because of blooming and growing together and all of those kinds of imageries that can come along with it.

0:43

In addition to the mural unveiling, the event also featured guest speakers, including Provost Marcella David.

0:49

I mean, I think Columbia College has been around for 135 years because of the creative spirit and for the kind of pragmatic recreation that has happened over and over again. So these are two women who started off with the School of Oratory and then as every kind of creative innovation came along, they’re like, “We’re going to be a part of this.”

1:13

And so that spirit of kind of creative recreation is, I think, the reason why Columbia College has persisted.

1:21

And that’s why I’m super excited about this moment.

1:25

It’s really fun to be in a moment of creative recreation with our new program array and leaning into new technologies and new ways of thinking about creative practice in a more interdisciplinary way.

1:40

I think that’s really going back to the same spirit that started Columbia College.

1:45

Students in attendance engaged with activities and shared their thoughts on the event and Columbia’s anniversary.

1:51

Honestly, I thought so far it’s been fun.

1:53

It’s been interactive, you know, you got everyone coming together and I feel like we don’t get enough of that.

1:59

When I got here, I made an effort to kind of go around, explore all the buildings and see what Columbia has to offer.

2:06

I think it’s really, really interesting how it’s kind of evolved over the years, but it’s still definitely very specific

2:13

In what it’s trying to serve, so I think it’s really cool that it’s just adapted and changed so much based on, you know, the world and what people want and what people need.

2:24

My time with the Illustration Department was so critical to me.

2:27

I learned so much from the amazing faculty that they have, and so just being able to interact with those professors and interact with the people in my department was amazing, and it’s great to know that in the last 135 years it’s come such a long way.

2:40

I can’t believe it’s 135 years since this institution has been open.

2:44

Like, I know it’s a few months a little, like where it actually officially came out, but it’s still amazing that, what, over a century, like wow.

2:54

As the celebrations draw to a close, Columbia students, faculty and staff not only are looking back to the past, but also forward to the future of Columbia.

3:02

This is Ali Brenneman for Chronicle TV.

Copy edited by Matt Brady